He said that while India is making phenomenal progress on all fronts, "there is one challenge that continues to detract our attention from development".

Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday (March 9) addressed the Indian community in Costa Rica and said that India is capable enough to fight terrorism on its soil. He also said that India recently showed its capability when it destroyed a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror camp across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan’s Balakot.

Venkaiah Naidu’s address generally revolved around terrorism in India which continues to get support and aide from across the border. He said that while India is making phenomenal progress on all fronts, “there is one challenge that continues to detract our attention from development”.

Targetting Pakistan in his speech, Venkaiah Naidu said, “We’re a peace loving country. All time Dick and Harry came and attacked us, ruled us, ruined us, cheated us but we never attacked anyone because we believe in the philosophy that entire world is one family…but we’ve a neighbour who is aiding, training, funding terrorists.”

“We don’t want any kind of support to fight terror in India. We’re capable. We’ve shown our capacity recently. When they [Jaish] attacked CRPF in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama and killed 40 personnel, a response was given. The Indian Air Force (IAF) did not attacked Pakistan military, didn’t harm a single citizen and precisely hit the target,” Vankaiah Naidu said.

“Our neighbour [Pakistan] is aiding terrorists, it is an open secret. Recently after the Pulwama terror attack where 40 security personnel lost their lives, four of our Indian Air Force aircraft went to Pakistan, targetted that training camp, destroyed it and came back without any problem within 21 minutes.”

Venkaiah Naidu: Our neighbor is aiding terrorists, open secret. Recently after Pulwama attack where 40 security personnel lost their lives, 4 of our Indian Air Force aircraft went to Pakistan, targeted that training camp, destroyed it & came back without any problem within 21 min pic.twitter.com/oC8E5bTiho

He further said that terrorism is an international issue. “Terrorism is enemy of humanity, terror has no religion. No religion preaches terror.”

Venkaiah Naidu said that India wants to have good relations with its neighbours but “as former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said: you can change friends, but you can’t change your neighbour. Keeping that in mind we’re trying our best.”